


Exile

by moominliveshere



Category: Tell it to the Bees (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26913967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moominliveshere/pseuds/moominliveshere
Summary: Jean stood apprehensively outside the stone house. One hand jammed into her trouser pocket, the other rubbed against her, neck insistently pressing the flesh there. It had been one year since she had seen Lydia, or Charlie.ORI didn't love how the movie ended, so here to fix it. It's really not an angsty fic, more like I related to this line from Taylor Swift's Exile: "I think I've seen this film before/And I didn't like the ending"
Relationships: Jean Markham/Lydia Weekes, Jean/Lydia
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	Exile

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago (long before folklore came out, so take the title with a grain of salt lol). Love a lesbian period piece, and thought Jean and Lydia deserved to be together in the end.

Jean stood apprehensively outside the stone house. One hand jammed into her trouser pocket, the other rubbed against her, neck insistently pressing the flesh there. It had been one year since she had seen Lydia, or Charlie.

***

Lydia had written her when they arrived in Manchester. She had written pages in a careful script. Her character shone through in the darkness of the ink on the page: when Lydia became excited about a topic (Charlie’s new school, say), the ink was dark and thick, leaving an indentation on the page. When she grew dreamy, writing of the new gray sky, of how she sometimes looked up and thought of Jean, of what she was doing and who she was with, her pen seemed to lift with her thoughts and her words faded, barely legible. Jean had smiled all through reading the first letter, and then cried as she read it through again. She saw Lydia in the words, and Charlie, too, because Lydia wrote about him in such vivid detail. She could practically taste his curiosity and energy, his interest in city life and his skepticism crashing into each other.

Jean hardly knew what to write back. She had never been one for self-expression, at least not through the written word. She wrote a few lines before her morning rounds, a few in the evening after work. She updated Lydia on daily life in Dunbar, on her patients’ ailments. Jim was well, she said. Annie, too, from what she could tell. She was lonely, she wrote, before blotting it out. She walked outside after that, and straight to the beehives. Jean knelt in front of the hives and whispered, _I’m lonely, I’m afraid, what if I never…_ The bees hummed in response, seeming to know what Jean couldn’t bear to say aloud, even to them.

She mailed her letter the next morning, sealing it with a kiss—a silly gesture, considering Lydia would never know. But Jean knew.

***

Charlie rushed through the door of his new home, arms spread like an airplane. He began climbing the stairs before his mother called out, “Mind your boots.” He tossed them carelessly down the stairs, hearing the thud and a sigh from his mum, before running to his room. He had a new specimen for his treasure collection, a beetle he had found dead on the ground, black shell glimmering. He preserved it carefully in ammonium chlorate, which he had purchased from the chemist’s down the road. Satisfied with the outcome, he heaved a great sigh, hands brushing against his trousers. He would show his mum later, who would _ooh_ and _ahh_ appropriately. But she had never loved the outdoors and her interest would extend, he knew, only to him and his accomplishment. Dr. Markham would know all about the beetle, he thought, would know the right questions to ask about it. She had her own collection of treasures.

At age ten and three-quarters, Charlie did not have a great deal of insight into his own emotional life, but he knew the basics of those around him. He knew, for example, that his mother had taken to reading in the evening, rather than putting a record on for them to dance to. She attributed this to adjusting to a new work schedule, a new home. Her smile did not come so easily as it once had, though she was clearly happy to be out of Dunbar. Charlie wished, suddenly, that he had not told Dr. Markham that he knew she would not be joining them any time soon. In hindsight, it seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like maybe, if Charlie had simply kept his mouth shut, Dr. Markham might have met them in their new stone house one evening, with her car full of boxes, parked on the street. Charlie would have seen her and run in from an evening of playing stick ball and his mother would say, _Jean, Jean, you’re here…_

***

The sky looked ominous to Lydia as she walked to work. She had forgotten her umbrella, so a downpour, she knew, was inevitable. She swished her wicker shopping basket across her arm, letting it drop to her elbow before pushing it forward to her wrist. She would buy groceries after work, so began to form a list in her head.

Lydia had not been sleeping well, though she enjoyed her new job, a secretary position at a law firm. She had taken a course, before they moved, in typing. It was one of those mail-in courses, and she had earned a certification for it, allowing her to apply for a job in the city. In many ways the office was similar to the mill in its rhythmic tedium. She worked at a desk in a room full of typists for eight hours each day, with a break for lunch, during which she chatted away with the other women, fitting right in. Their accents matched, she had realized one day, startled to find herself surrounded by others like her. Some days she read her book during the break instead of chatting. The women did not seem to mind this, or whisper about her, as the ladies had in Dunbar. Or at least, she did not catch wind of such gossip.

She had written to Jean the day they had arrived in Manchester. She felt herself being poured into the letter in a way that half-frightened her because why, she thought, would she want to send any part of herself back to Dunbar? But Jean was in Dunbar, so compromises had to be made. And anyway, she had felt light after sending it, had pulled Charlie into a hug and a dance right after writing it. Her boy. Charlie. She had come here to give him freedom from his father’s expectations and the town’s greedy, draining grasp. He was thriving, she thought, though she could tell he missed the woods. They had gone on one outdoors excursion so far, to a nearby lake. She had packed oranges as a treat and fresh bread and cheese. Charlie had skipped ahead of her on the walking path, practically floating. She had stretched her hand out, reaching for something not there, before pulling it back in. It had been a perfectly still day, she had written to Jean. _I thought of you when we reached the lake_ , she said, _because Charlie looked back to me, asking permission to jump in and I smiled and nodded and then looked to my left, for you. Because I knew you would have laughed, I imagined you would have pulled me into the water, at least up to my ankles._ She stopped there, suddenly melancholy. Out of place. 

***

One year of letters between Lydia and Jean. Letters laced with longing, some of them jagged with love, others practical-minded. Jean usually included a post-script for Charlie: _P.S. The bees have begun to hibernate. x Jean P.S. I think a cat has been prowling, for I found a dead mouse on the front step…have put a bowl of milk out every night since. Will let you know more. P.S. Mrs. Sandringham stopped over for tea and asked about you. She made trifle with fresh raspberry jam…_ Charlie would bounce as his mother read her parts of the letter, waiting for his bit impatiently. On his birthday, a package arrived wrapped in brown paper. In it was a magnifying glass, engraved _C.W._ , weighty in his hand.

***

Jean raised her hand to the door of the stone house. She took a breath, filled with nervous excitement. She had left behind her home in Dunbar, taking only her clothes and a few other essentials. The cat she had given to Jim and Sarah for safe keeping. It was hardest to say goodbye to the bees. _I have to go_ , she told them, _you know why_. And they did.

***

She moved to knock, when she heard two voices behind her, walking up the path. “Mum,” said one voice, “D’you think we could go to the lake again soon?”

“Mmm, I don’t see why not. Listen, why don’t you…” the second voice trailed off. Jean turned around then, though she felt frozen in place.

“Dr. Markham!” yelled Charlie, though it was more of a whoop than any fully articulated words.

“Charlie,” she responded easily, smiling. Charlie rammed into her, pushing his arms around her in a hug and she took only a moment to find her wits and hug him back. She breathed in the smell of his hair and looked up.

“Lydia,” she said, shy again.

“You were a long while,” Lydia murmured, stepping forward.

“Well—I—” Jean stammered.

Lydia laughed then, enchanted by this woman, and tugged at her hand, pulling them into a brief kiss. Charlie wiggled his way out from between them, swinging the door open.

“Well, come in then,” he said. 


End file.
